The director of Pixar's newest film Turning Red confirms that it contains a hidden Easter egg for Lightyear. Premiering on Disney+ tomorrow, March 11, 2022, Turning Red tells the story of Mei Lee, a 13-year-old Chinese-Canadian girl who discovers that she turns into a giant red panda whenever she experiences great emotion. The voice cast of the film includes Rosalie Chiang, James Hong, Jordan Fisher, Ava Morse, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, and Sandra Oh, who will also star in this month's upcoming horror film Umma.
One of the defining characteristics of Pixar is the tight control the studio has over every detail of its productions. This includes sneaking in a variety of Easter eggs into every production, including a Pizza Planet truck (to reference their first film, Toy Story), the Luxo Ball (from their first short film Luxo, Jr.), and the number A113 (referring to a classroom at the Cal Arts school, where Pixar's John Lasseter went). In addition to the set of Easter eggs included in nearly every production (the presence of voice actor John Ratzenberger is yet another example), the producers also have a tendency to include references to upcoming films that Pixar is also working on.
Screen Rant had the opportunity to sit down with director Domee Shi and producer Lindsey Collins about Turning Red. In addition to confirming that all the usual suspects will be present, including the "Pizza Planet Truck, Luxo Ball, [and] A113," along with references to some of Pixar's SparkShorts. They also confirmed that there will be a reference to the upcoming film Lightyear. Lightyear is a spinoff of the Toy Story franchise, following the origin story of the Buzz Lightyear character upon which the action figure is based, and it comes to theaters rather soon, on June 17, 2022. Read the full quote below:
Domee Shi: Yeah, they're all there. Yeah, all the classic ones: Pizza Planet Truck, Luxo Ball, A113's in there. Also, every Pixar film has an Easter Egg that is a nod to the next film coming up. So there's a Lightyear Easter egg.
Lindsey Collins: Yeah, Lightyear's in there. We have some SparkShorts stuff in there because we had people on our crew who had worked on those SparkShorts. So there's Purl and a Burrow bunny is in there. Yeah, we have some good stuff in there.
Domee Shi: But you have to watch it to find it.
One thing both Shi and Collins remained mum on is what exactly the Lightyear Easter egg is. Eagle-eyed fans will likely be able to spot it easily, considering how much knowledge the general public has about the history and lore of Buzz Lightyear at this point. However, it's possible that the Easter egg is a reference to a part of the movie that hasn't been introduced to audiences yet, so it may not be clear where the Turning Red reference is until Lightyear actually comes out.
Turning Red is the third Pixar film to be released exclusively as a streaming title on Disney+, after Soul and Luca. This will allow viewers to be able to pause and pore over every frame to catch details they may have missed. For those who are having issues finding it, that Lightyear Easter egg will likely end up on social media rather quickly after the film is released.
